


Corridor Life

by Rachael Sabotini (wickedwords)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Award Nominees, Domestic, Earth, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-28
Updated: 2005-12-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedwords/pseuds/Rachael%20Sabotini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack sees it in the way Daniel stands around in the corridor, staring at the walls like he's never seen concrete before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Corridor Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Taselby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taselby/gifts).



> Thanks to sherrold for the beta.

  
Jack sees it in the way Daniel stands around in the corridor, staring at the walls like he's never seen concrete before. It's a taut but distant look, an observer outside of himself, and Jack's been there, knows that feeling well. Abydos or Iraq, same kinda thing, when you've forgotten the definition of home. "Hey," he says, drawing Daniel's attention. "You hungry?"

Daniel nods once, blinking eyes a deeper blue than Jack remembered.

"Lunch?" The mess has limited choices, and Jack figures that's good right now. Less choice means less confusion and less confusion means...what, exactly? He's not sure, and couldn't be sure for Daniel, at least not now. Ascension. Descension. Who gives a crap now that Daniel is back.

"Okay," Daniel says softly, touching the concrete wall in wonderment. "Yes." He clears his throat, looking intently at Jack. "Lunch." Stepping in close beside and a little behind Jack, he indicates that Jack should lead the way.

Jack doesn't say anything about how good it feels to have Daniel there. Instead he talks about jello and pudding and pie, the best part of the festive holiday season being the cookie exchanges, and how hard it is to find good sweets off-world. "Is there no other planet that has developed refined white sugar yet?"

Daniel pauses and stares at Jack, like Jack's dumped a forkful of pie down his shirt, and Jack glances down to make sure he hasn't. 

Good. No purple glop. He glances back and catches Daniel's gaze. "What?"

"Nothing," Daniel says, and his smile is shy and tight and inwardly focused. "Maybe we should make sure that the teams have some to trade."

Looking at the ceiling, Jack pushes his chair back. "That might be a very good call."

* * *

Jack spends too much time in the infirmary at the SGC. He knows that somewhere out there, the snow has started to melt, but inside the building it's still a cold dark grey. He doesn't play count holes in the ceiling tiles, as he knows exactly how many there are in each square millimeter, not that he'd let on that he knows how small a millimeter really is. It chaffs his butt that he's here and Daniel's off world without him. That seems to happen more and more these days, since Daniel...descended. 

"You're clear." And thank God Fraiser is here at last, handing him all of the paperwork and releasing him. "You're to go home and rest, you hear? I don't want to hear any word about you hanging around at the SGC until Daniel gets back."

"Yeah, yeah." He grabs the paperwork gruffly, and she backs off, hands outstretched. Jack's the one who stands around in the corridors now, looking lost. He's not used to being without his team. Back when Jonas was with them, he didn't notice so much, as Jonas took up too much space and breathed too harshly when Jack was around, and his face was too full of innocence to make Jack ever feel comfortable.

Not like his team. They all had wear on them -- Daniel, Carter, Teal'c. Though for Carter and Teal'c, it's not so much 'wear' as they're starting to fray. Just a little around the edges, where no one really notices, except maybe each other.

Heading for the elevator, shoulder still aching despite the pain medication, Jack thought that he probably fit in the frayed pile too.

* * *

In Jack's mind, summer barbeque is food of the gods, and he takes a deep whiff of his plate as he enters the house, heading for the living room. The maid service he was trying has been here today, and the place looks good, if a little empty. The pillows on the couch have all been straightened, and everything on the coffee table has been set into a single neat pile -- but at least the old boxes of take-out are gone, and the dishes are done and just waiting to be put away. 

Maybe he'll do that tomorrow. He considers the TV a moment -- tilting his head slightly up and slightly to the left before making his decision: dusted, and the tube cleaned too. Those smudges left from the nachos during the last ball game have been completely wiped away.

It's cool, and Jack decides that this time, the maid service can stay. It's only the fourth or fifth outfit he's called anyway.

Setting his plate down next to the beer, the scent of charcoal and hops mixes in perfect balance as Jack flops down on the couch. Everything looks much less empty now, with the piles pushed out of the way so the edges aren't straight, and the cushions are manhandled into better support for Jack's back. With a flick of the button, the TV flares to life, adding to the vibrant mess. 

Much better, Jack thinks as he stretches out. Much, much better. 

The beer's at his lips when the doorbell rings; briefly, Jack considers not opening it. But then it rings again, longer this time, and Jack figures that someone needs to get a hold of him. Especially when the door starts being pounded.

"You could have just paged me, you know." He takes another swig of beer, then saunters over to the door. "Hold on. I'm coming." He throws the door open and stares at his visitor. "Daniel."

"Jack."

"You don't look so good." The suit Daniel is wearing is wrinkled and creased like he'd been through a firefight. Jack's reasonably sure that hasn't happened. If someone had blown something up at the SGC, there would have been phone calls and paperwork about it, and well, someone would have paged him. Probably. Should have paged him anyway.

Daniel's hair is drooping, and there is a blue smudge on his left cheek. "You got something there." Jack points to his own cheek as he steps aside and lets Daniel in.

Daniel rubs vigorously at the spot. "We've got a problem."

"What kind of a problem?"

"My students are insane."

"Didn't you say that the last time you taught Goa'uld"-- Jack takes advantage of the moment to take another drink of his beer -- "and some other facts of alien life?" 

"That would be it, yes." Daniel's frustration is leaking out in every word that he speaks and in the way he holds his head and his hands.

"But you've taught this class before..."

"Three years ago." Daniel's voice cranks up the longer he talks. "But I didn't remember the students ever being like this. They're all--" Daniel's hand whirls in the air up near his head. 

"Stupid?"

"Not open to new ideas. Bad for someone in the Stargate program." 

"I'm sure they'll be fine. Once they've encountered a few aliens--"

Daniel rolls his whole head this time, not just his eyes. "Oh, some of these men have encountered aliens before. You remember Lorne, SG-11? The mining expedition with the Unas?"

"Yes, Daniel, I do." He isn't senile yet.

"Let's just say that intelligent design apparently has a lot in common with what's being taught at the Air Force Academy -- Hey, is that chicken?"

Jack looks down at his plate. "Yeah, it is and it's getting cold. You want some?" 

"I didn't get dinner."

"Sure. Why not." Jack cuts off about a third of the chicken breast while Daniel wanders into the kitchen and pulls out a plate. 

"Hey, you got anything to drink?" 

"Check the fridge. There might be something left from the last time you were over."

Bottles rattle. "Did you know you have some cream soda in here?"

"Huh. Take it if you want."

"Thanks." Daniel strolls out, French roll on the plate and utensils in one hand, soda in the other. "And it's not that they're stupid. I've seen most of these guys on SG teams, and while they're new, they aren't completely inexperienced. We don't get that sort of yahoo--"

"Yahoo?"

Daniel rolls his eyes. "I must have picked that one up from you."

"I'm flattered." Jack stretches out and his calf momentarily brushes up against Daniel's. Jack feels the tug deep in his belly, and feels a smile creep onto his face. He likes having Daniel around.

"It's just..." Daniel gives a kind-of half-shrug. "I give them case studies where they have to translate runes or explain the significance of a particular ritual, and more than half the class stalls out when they get to the word 'god.'" He huffs out a deep breath. "It's insane."

"You could zat them. Just as a demo."

"Wouldn't help." 

"It might."

Daniel takes off his jacket and tosses it over the back of the couch, then jerks off his tie and throws it on top of the pile before he sits down, close enough that his thigh presses up against Jack's. "I'll think about it." He bites into the chicken, and a look of such bliss crosses his face that Jack wonders why he never finds food quite that exciting. 

"This is good," Daniel says, and takes another bite. They eat quietly for a bit, watching each other out of the corner of their eyes, while ostensibly watching the Simpsons episode that Jack has on, touching and not speaking, and Jack's not sure if they need to.

In the middle of Homer giving Marge a bowling ball, Daniel sets his plate down abruptly. "I really hate Goa'uld."

Jack nods, taking a swig from his beer. "I hate 'em too, damn snakes."

Daniel shakes his head. "Not the Goa'uld, though, yes, I hate them, but I also hate teaching the language." He looks at his bottle for a moment. "I just never realized how much."

"Daniel? So this was a...really bad day?"

"Oh," Daniel glances up quickly. "No more than usual. It's just...most languages have a rhythm to them when they are spoken, and while it's not a tonal language, exactly, the rhythm and the inflection does affect the meaning of a word, and these guys couldn't hear it. They stopped listening to me."

"Okay..." Jack strings the word out, hoping for inspiration to strike, and coming up empty. "I don't listen to you, Daniel."

"Yes, but you don't do it because I've just somehow shattered your worldview. You do it because you're bored."

"Well, maybe they were bored. It happens. Even in language classes."

Pushing up his glasses, Daniel rubs at his eyes, and darkening the skin around them. It used to be that on very rare occasions, usually at three am on some backwater planet someplace, when he'd been working for hours on a specific translation, Daniel would rub his eyes enough to give himself 'raccoon eyes' -- the dark circles around them so large that it looked like he was wearing a mask.

Jack doesn't remember that happening recently. There are differences between the Daniel of then and the Daniel of now, things Jack doesn't like thinking about. Not that this Daniel is so bad, just that he is, well, a little different. More active. More solid. More...there. Happier, too.

The thought of death making someone happy twists his guts into a tight knot. Setting the beer down, his stomach feels unsettled and ill-at-ease. Maybe he wasn't up for eating right now. Maybe he shouldn't have visitors.

"Jack, are you okay?"

"Hmm?"

"You suddenly went white."

"Ah, yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. I think the chicken might be a little off, is all." He pushes the plate away. "Tastes kinda weird."

"Huh. Tastes fine to me."

"Maybe you're just more stoic than I am." He heads to the kitchen with his plate, and tossed the rest of his food into the garbage; Daniel follows him. 

"I'm not really all that hungry, either. I am kinda tired though." Daniel's looking at him, his eyes bright and open, a small smile playing about his lips. "Want to call it an early night?"

"That's...unexpected." 

There's a slight twist to Daniel's mouth as he looks at Jack, a way that his eyes shine as he traps Jack's gaze. "Is it?" he asks, his voice gone low and quiet. "Is it, Jack?"

Jack rubs the back of his arm with his hand, unable to look away. Maybe it's not. He and Daniel have sometimes, but there's always been a big reason for it: Life or death, life after death, stuff like that. Never because Jack had a crappy day or Daniel had a fucking awesome day translating something or because it didn't rain today. It's never anything simple.

The way that Daniel is looking at him, though, makes it seem like one of the things that's changed since Daniel got back. Apparently Daniel doesn't think he needs any reason at all to step inside Jack's personal space, cup his hand at the back of Jack's neck, and brush his lips against Jack's. 

Maybe he doesn't at that.

He breathes 'I remember' into Jack's lips between kisses, and Jack feels the spark of desire thrum through his body; he folds his hand over Daniel's and tugs him closer, sliding his free arm around Daniel's back. The button-down shirt is slick and stiff in a way that Daniel normally...isn't. In Jack's mind, Daniel is more a cotton T-shirt guy, or maybe a worn uniform shirt, but it doesn't really matter. His back is solid under Jack's splayed fingers and he can feel the warmth radiating out of him as he slides his hand down Daniel's starched back, and lets his hand cup Daniel's ass. "I never forgot."

As they stumble to the bedroom, Jack's just glad Daniel doesn’t have to be invited any more. He opens his mouth, welcoming Daniel into him, lips and tongue demanding his full attention. Daniel threads himself between Jack's thighs somehow, and Jack gasps as the contact sends a spark through him. This is better than memory, better than the late-night dreams he had, when he would doze but never quite sleep. Daniel feels real to him now. It's in the smell of his sweat, the scrape of his beard against Jack's throat, the press of his cock against Jack's thigh, and the soft quiet sighs that escape his lips when Daniel tugs at the hem of Jack's shirt, peeling it off over Jack's head.

Daniel's hand rests for a moment against the planes of Jack's chest, fingers rough and callused from his work. He looks at Jack and grins with more than his lips -- his teeth, his eyes, his tongue, his whole being pouring out into it, and Jack is mesmerized, unable to look away. 

There are no corridors in Jack's house, no concrete. Just plasterboard walls and hallways. But Daniel's lips are sweeter than refined sugar, and his mouth tastes better than honey, and it feels like Daniel is finally home.

THE END  



End file.
